Maurice Ravel's Miraculous Orchestration 

It’s already hard to find friends who love classical music (in the general sense). It’s even harder to find Ravel fans!

One of my favorite pieces of all time

After a concert, a woman came up to Ravel at a party and gushingly exclaimed to him " Oh Monsieur Ravel you are a Genius!' To which Ravel answered "No Madam, I am just able to put one note after another better than anyone else."

The piano version is brilliant, but the orchestration is absolutely breathtaking. It shows how being a good composer and being a good orchestrator are not exactly the same thing. Ravel's compositions were brilliant. But his orchestration was a whole new level of mastery

If you know Ravel well, you take things like that for granted. Daphnis is in my opinion the best color palette for orchestra ever written.

Ravel is simply one of the best composers of all time, no question. He was a perfectionist, and it shows.

Le Tombeau is a masterpiece, the Prelude and the Menuet are my favorite parts and some of the greatest pieces of music written in any style. yeah that final piano arpeggio you can tell he had a harp line in mind, because even in the solo piano version you can hear it as a harp like phrasing and articulation.

Indeed he was. To me Ravel is one of the greatest composers ever.

I’m a Music student and many friends of mine have never really heard of Ravel. My family aren’t musicians, so of course they haven’t heard of him, either. Ravel is #1 (Tied with Schubert) on my Top 10 List. I heard Boléro once and was obsessed with it for a good month. Then Daphnis and Chloe, his two Piano Concertos, and the rest is history. I dove HARD into his music, and I love even his obscure works (His “Frontispiece” for two pianos is HEART-BREAKING, written right after WWI and just weeks after his mother passed away. Plus, check out his “ Scheherazade,” his two Operas, and his “Pieces in the Styles of…….” Suite.) I saw Daphnis and Chloe live about a month ago. I left the Symphony hall crying and in a puddle of sheer ecstasy and euphoria. Never have I felt so STIRRED TO MY CORE with such power and stunning musicality from the orchestra and chorus alike. I was in the 3rd row. I could FEEL the music vibrating through me. I saw it by myself, and a lot of older people seemed surprised to see me there, lol. I’m VERY VERY SLOWLY trying to play the 5th Movement of the “Miroirs” Suite on the piano. (I’m not a pianist at all, but a vocalist.) I’m also trying to convince my voice teacher to let me sing Ravel next semester (like his “3 Poems of Melarme,” his Greek Song Cycle, etc), but he’s UNFAMILIAR WITH RAVEL!!!! 😱🥺🥺🥺🥺 So I’m dumbfounded and trying to convert him, lol. Also, for anyone curious, my favorite composers are: Ravel, Schubert, Copland, Chopin, Liszt, Bach, Händel, Messiaen, Fauré, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Reich, Bartók, Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, Gershwin, Lili Boulanger, Busoni… And way more, lol. I need Classical Music friends!!

How did he manage to pull off that orchestration? Incredible!

Finally this piece gets some recognition! The prelude of tombeau is so magical to me, it's one of my fav classical pieces for piano. It just has this mistiful sound to it, I love it!

They shimmering strings when the woodwind drop out at the end is beautiful and so clever. Almost sounds like fire embers slowly dying

I absolutely agree! Quite unfortunate that Ravel's genius is rather underrated, but that simply makes his music a hidden gem to enjoy to whoever stumbles upon him and willingly listens to his wonderful compositions! I should really listen to the orchestrations of Le Tombeau de Couperin, because I have only heard the piano transcriptions and I didn't know he orchestrated it!

Ravel will always be my GOAT

I didn't realize Ravel wrote this around first World War. That really changes my appreciation ! Gaspard 1908. I never forget that I came here for instruction. But just the score and music.

Absolutely no question - Ravel is a musical genius, especially at orchestration! I have to say, Ravel is my favorite composer! It bugs people when they ask me, "What about Beethoven?" and I reply, "Beethoven is relentlessly tonal!" And that's why I like Ravel!

The final movement is dedicated to two brothers who died their first day of service, 1914. Ravel and Puccini are the only composers that can make me cry.

Now I realise what’s going on: that’s how you do a pentatonic glissando on a harp in practice-by turning the c and f down a halftone with the pedals, right? Anything else that’s technically special about that glissando? (Or did you just highlight it because it sounds so wonderful?)

I had the immense pleasure to see the LSO perform Le Tombeau at the Barbican while I was abroad in London. It moved me so very deeply. (The Forlane is positively magical.)

It's fun taking a stab at thinking about how a piece could be orchestrated when it's absolutely bonkers, and then to see a master do it better than you could have convinced, and in a few ways you yourself had imagined. Love the layout of the video.

Absolutely love Ravel (and your editing too hahahaha)

Desert Island piece for me. Both forms.

Of course it is the consummate technique of a master orhestrator at play here, but it sounds like pure magic. Ravel was not a mere composer. He was a sorcerer!

Ravel was a genius, that’s as simple as that.

The harp really does with providing texture between the original and the orchestrated version. Ravel's fluid, intricate yet concise writing in the winds however, is something purely genius. He was one of the greatest orchestrators of his time along with Scriabin, Mahler etc.

And people have the audacity to call Kanye West a genius! Ravel has always been one of my top five favorite classical composers. 1. Stravinsky, 2. Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ravel. But of course, I LOVE ALL STYLES OF CLASSICAL MUSIC (from Bach's Inventions to Xenakis' Jonchaies 1977). Great job!

glissando? (Every harpist chuckles)

I played the violin for this piece in orchestra, and the way all of the instruments come together is absolutely spectacular! Ravel's orchestration of this piece is genius.

Such great video work, and your love for this music shining through.

Even though I'm not a huge fan of 20th century classical music, Ravel and Rachmaninoff are clear exceptions to this. Both have a wonderful taste for the more modern compositional methods but maintain a grounded classical tonal structure. Respect what worked from the past but embrace the new.

The orchestration is more dramatic, but the piano is more magical.

Ravel took what was known and understood about musical convention and reinvented the rules for modern composers to grasp =~}

No questions. Ravel is my favourite composer of all time.

Oh if you think this is good, check out the Woodwind Quintet version of this!

got to love how even the wonder of ravel is now being reduced to meme clickbait thumbnails. "is that allowed?" it's a harp gliss, so yes, yes it is

Harpist here: I love you Maurice! Thank you for giving us that moment to play. I had never felt like I did when I got to play that gliss.

2:17 This chord is identical to the start of the finale of Ravel's opera L'enfant et les Sortilèges. Love it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6SmVF7DExE8.html

1:29 Ravel had that DRIP drip

Tan hermoso!! Brillante Ravel!

Amazing pieces! But the piano piece is my preference...

Le tombeau de Couperin was one of the last pieces I played with my youth orchestra before the pandemic hit, and incidentally, it was also my last year of high school. So this piece is always seared into my memory as one of my last joyful orchestral experiences since I'm not doing music in college.

The orchestral version feels better than, for lack of a better term, sex.

Of course, if you are orchestrating your own work you are allowed to recompose it a bit if you run into difficulties

I think this prelude is the most beautiful of Ravel's works

1:28 Ravel's orchestration is amazing. what he did for Mussorgsky's Pictures at An Exhibition makes the piano piece that mussorgsky wrote seem like a rough draft. I really believe Mussorgsky was planning to orchestrate it all along.

Bon, je m'abonne ! Vos vidéos sont aussi intéressantes qu'elles sont courtes. Trad : Okay, I'm subscribing! Your videos are as interesting as they are short. Thanks !

Wonderful.😊

Some masterful creations came out of WWI. Ravel composes "Le Tombeau de Couperin," and Tolkien writes "The Lord of The Rings."

Great piece! Have always loved it. But, honestly, we all know you cannot possibly be stating that it is impossible to orchestrate?! Really?! Kind of the dumbest question I have seen posed in a decade.

Really great. Thanks for sharing this.

I'd say I'm an absolute Ravel fan, h-o-w-e-v-e-r, I'll be 'that' guy and say I'm not a fan of the orchestrated version of LTDC. A lot of the notes get lost in the mist of longer played notes that don't fade as it would on the piano. When will there be a conductor that asks the woodwinds/strings that play the longer notes to decrescendo immediately and let the triplets stand out? Or perhaps the orchestrated version isn't meant to parody the mechanics of the piano, either way, not a fan. I'm also not a fan of Rachmanninoff's Cello and Piano Sonata since the piano often plays just too LOUD for the cello to be heard. So see, I'm not being a Ravel hater lol. Much love!

Hands down my favourite piece of Classical music

I don't think there are too few Ravel fans, luckily he's famous enough (if only for the Boléro to many people). He clearly is among the first-rate composers. But regarding orchestration alone he is at the top, along with Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss. And let's not forget Berlioz who was one of the fathers of the modern orchestra and influenced all the three composers mentioned.

cool

poor Couperin

I have subscribed to your channel. I am amazed by your amazing editing skills. I can't play an instrument at all, but I'm a passing Japanese who has a hobby of writing scores. I will stop by again.

Absolutely lovely. With my attention span I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for the clickbait, but I'm not mad about it 😅

Not sure about the premise here. Ravel's piano writing is very colorful and textural. I think it's a natural fit to be orchestrated. I don't think it could be done better than Ravel did it however 👍🏻

Perfectly crafted & beautiful video, somewhat like Ravel’s compositions! Thank you.

very cool

It's sort of steam punk music. This is not at all baroque music, couldn't be played with baroque instruments - but it gives the impression of some high tech baroque machinery...

The minuet is the most amazing part of this collection for me. That middle portion seems to be on the verge of despair (he was remembering a departed friend, surely), but pulls itself way back towards the light in such an elegant way. Nobody but Ravel could have managed this.

Thank you so much M. Music Professor. As a non professional composer myself, what should I say ? The music of Ravel is so fascinating ! I need to look into it ! How could it work so perfectly ?

The moment at 1:44 in the orchestral version is so gorgeous. That tetrachord sounds like heaven (Em on top of Am, so basically Am11).

It seems more suited for an orchestra. A beautiful piano piece, but the single instrument overly constrains it.

Nobuo Uematsu is clearly a fan of Ravel.

❤️❤️❤️

I dont like the orchestral version. Its a imaginative orchestration, but you really hear that he orchestrated the original one. Im more a fan of making a whole new piece of art out of the orchestra. And the ending? Harp for glissando, o cmon!

My favourite orchestral piece. The orchestration in pure genius as is the composition itself.

Anyone who knows Ravel is a fan. Are there any lukewarm Ravel fans? Hook 'em with Bolero and then show them the really good stuff!

Brings tears of ecstasy to the eyes, the heart, the soul, and most of all the body, gushing forth in its erotic symbolism magnified beyond all expectations.

You need to realise that if it is the composer doing the transcription, he knows best what was his point with the original instrument in the first place and instead of just rewriting it for orchestra, he recomposes that for orchestra in order to achieve the same goal. Add to that his incredible skill of orchestration, you get this.

Amazing.. but i think he hates the oboes!!!!! It s hard to blew and play that t that.....

Was Ravel a pioneer for using harps? My limited knowledge tells me he’s like a pioneer for many instrument usage( saxophone, snare, and probably the first one knew how to write brasses) if so we really really gave him too little credits.

An interesting experiment is to compare the different orchestrations of Picture at an Exhibition. You can hear Ravel’s greatness there. All other orchestration dull in comparison.

I constantly go back and forth with regard to which version is my favorite (piano or orchestra). This piece is one of my favorites of Ravel, it never gets old

That’s why Ravel is the King of orchestration! And the cool thing about these examples where he takes his own piano compositions and orchestrates them, is we can see his genius at work, where as with other orchestral composers you don’t often get to see their piano sketches beforehand.

It's always surprising that Ravel wrote some of the most difficult piano pieces, yet was never considered a great pianist. His true calling was his own orchestral works, and his orchestral transcriptions.

Hello, why would it be impossible to orchestrate please ?

Excellent presentation! As by far and away my favorite composer of all time - and I say that as a composer of some 60 odd years, reveals muses and magic are truly beyond comprehension. As Ned roarham road in one of his many books, Even in the view of his fellow composers, both contemporary and posthumous, ,' no one complained, no one remained unimpressed' by this master of Masters. One of the reasons he is so easily overlooked is because his music, despite its profound complexity and Majesty, he's not pretentious. Pretentious. It does not announce itself as special and ostentatiously glorious. Like much French art of the highest caliber, it is experienced as completely natural and inevitable, as egoless and pristine as a spring morning. And yet, in spite of hundreds, thousands of hours of deep study and research on his compositional and orchestrational technique, I have never even begun to find a composer of parallel gifts, except, at times, perhaps the youngstervinsky in his miraculous ballet works. And even he had to tip his hat to the miraculous ,' mountain peak,' of ravels, consummate, masterwork, Daphnis and Chloe' Indeed, Even as a lifelong classical guitarist, I was driven to learn Le Tombeau on the piano keyboard for the sheer joy of executing ravelle's magic under my fingers. And, after all these many years of immersion in his art, and all the understanding that I have managed to accrue, they remains the inexplicable Transcendence of his creations, which are the result of a very pure, extremely uncompromising soul, compared to which, I am sorry to say, but with few exceptions - The brilliant and beautiful American Samuel Barber being won, they're a very, very few composers who have even begun to approach his depth. Bravo Maurice!

I love these videos so much

Ravel is one of the greatest composers of the impressionistic era. Although, he, himself isn't an impressionist, he is indeed associated with this era of classical music. - A reference to the book, "Ravel"

Well, it's different music

Bravo, very nice video.

Wonder why he wrote a key signature, his music sounds modal with an open key

Apologize if I’m incorrect, but wasn’t this movement orchestrated by Zoltan Kocsis and not Ravel?

I've only recently discovered Ravel thanks to you, and crikey am I glad I did, this piece is amazing, especially the way he manages to orchestrate it. I have been listening to it on repeat

Is Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures" illustrative of his abilities? _(I don't know enough to judge; only know I love it!)_

When I can’t think of any music I want to hear…I always come back to this one piece and it sounds fresh, life affirming and radiant-genius.

PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!

who is the best orchestrator of all time?

Do you happen to offer critique for pieces by your subscribers?

I've spent the last few months obsessing over the orchestral version... This piece is amazing

😑❤️

love how you visualise it

Why would you even think this would be impossible to orchestrate? Ravel just took the notes and... did them. There's nothing amazing going on.

Ravel be playing random shit and the world be like OMG ITS GENIUS

what a wonderful piece!

It's quite possible that the last movement of the Couperin suite and the first movement of Gaspard de la nuit are my two favorite pieces of music, of any music ever. Just, unbelievable.